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Collapse of Canadiens very Leaf-like: Cox

Come up with your own version of hockey disaster, okay? Be a little creative, at least.

The 18-wheeler going over the cliff, as so aptly described by Brian Burke one awful winter, is a Toronto thing.

What you’re doing now is blatant copyright infringement.

The Canadiens, after all, are supposed to be insulated against this kind of total and complete collapse. All the bloated pomp and ceremony that hockey fans eat up like pablum, the passing of the torch and all that, is supposed to give Les Glorieux an impregnable armour against the spectacular and humiliating pratfall.

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Les Habitants will have bad seasons, sure. They’ll have a disappointing playoff series here and there, and on occasions a few deranged locals will light some cop cars on fire and the rest of the nation will tut-tut while simultaneously admiring Montreal’s “passion” for the sport as a matter of religion etc.

But the Canadiens, as a general rule, do not get stinking drunk, fall down and hit their heads on the sidewalk. They don’t throw up on the family dinner table at Thanksgiving. They don’t turn on each other — well, not since Henri Richard turned on Al MacNeil — and they never, ever soil the bleu, blanc et rouge.

In other words, they never, ever behave like the Leafs. It allows the high ground to at least pretend to feel sorry for their poor Original Six cousins from Upper Canada.

Well, until now. Until the Canadiens decided to play copycat, mimicking the kind of hockey nightmare we in Toronto don’t like but are, sadly, rather used to.

Remember last year with the Leafs? From Salute-gate to Kadri-gate, it was one thing after another, almost as if the club was trying to be inventive about coming up with a new, silly distraction every day as the losses piled up. The club was in a playoff position in November, but by March could barely win a single game.

Well, it’s been like that in Montreal this season.

There was the addition of the purposeless Alexander Semin in the summer, billed as a “no risk” transaction, but really a “no point” move. Troubled Zack Kassian arrived in an off-season trade and couldn’t even make it out of the pre-season.

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Still, the team started very strongly, 19-4-3, and looked like world-beaters even when all-world goalie Carey Price was knocked out of the lineup with an early injury. P.K. Subban made a $10 million donation to a local hospital, Max Pacioretty looked like a good fit as team captain and it seemed the Habs might be the best story in Canadian hockey this season.

But when Price went down again after a brief return and sparkplug Brendan Gallagher suffered a hand injury blocking a shot, the unravelling began. Semin was dumped and Kassian was traded for veteran goalie Ben Scrivens, then Alexander Galchenyuk got involved in a messy domestic incident with his girlfriend that made him look ridiculous when it went public.

The losing has been epic and endless, and there have been regular reports on Price’s progress from an apparent knee injury the specifics of which the club refuses to acknowledge, adding to the mystery.

The secrecy hasn’t helped. They said he would be out for a week, and he’s been gone three months.

GM Marc Bergevin, meanwhile, received plaudits all around for emerging one day and announcing that Michel Therrien would remain the coach until season’s end, but that seemed to do absolutely nothing to encourage or motivate the team.

Moving former first-round pick Jarred Tinordi to Arizona in a deal that, it seemed, conveniently made enforcer John Scott a member of Montreal’s minor league team to help the league out of an all-star jam, made the Habs look like they were doing Gary Bettman a special favour. We know it wasn’t a trade that made Montreal better.

Now, Subban is at the centre of controversy as he occasionally has been for being targeted by Therrien after a misplay Wednesday night that cost the Habs another game, their 24th loss in 32 games. Therrien wasn’t wrong to point out Subban’s error, but by neglecting to include the mistakes other Habs made on the key goal, he left himself open to criticism he was needlessly hanging the flamboyant Subban out to dry.

Given that Subban is the team’s best player when Price isn’t playing and skates 26 hard minutes a night, it wasn’t Therrien’s finest choice to make it sound like it was all the defenceman’s fault.

That got the rumour-mill charged up, although there seems little real evidence Bergevin would actually trade Subban, and both the defenceman and the coach did their level best to make it seem Wednesday’s incident was no big deal.

This is all decidedly new territory for owner Geoff Molson since he connected his famous family’s name back to this hockey club again seven years ago, and it will be fascinating to see the moves he decides to make after seeing a first-place team in November devolve into a squad that now seems to lack cohesion, character and sufficient talent.

It’s one thing to lose, and quite another to lose with dishonour in the way these Habs are losing. That has been the way of the Maple Leafs for many of the years since the two clubs met in the 1967 Stanley Cup final. The Canadiens have, for the most part, been able to distinguish themselves from their ancient rival by their overall class and commitment to excellence, not to mention 10 more Stanley Cup titles.

Now, with the Habs Cup-less since ’93, all those lovely pre-game ceremonies seem to ring rather hollow as this season, one that seem to hold so much promise, descends into chaos.

It all seems very Leaf-like in its various dynamics and dimensions.

Which might be the worst thing you could ever say about the Montreal Canadiens.

Damien Cox is a broadcaster with Rogers Sportsnet and a regular contributor to Hockey Night in Canada. He spent nearly 30 years covering a variety of sports for the Star, and his column appears on Saturdays. Follow him @DamoSpin.

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